Shhhh!...Hush Money...IRS to pass out $70 Million in Bonuses During Sequester

Photo credit: The Daily Caller

The Internal Revenue Service is about to pass out $70 million in bonuses to employees over the next few months.

Sen. Charles Grassley sent a letter Tuesday asking IRS acting chief Daniel Werfel to explain why the agency plans to give out the bonuses. 

Grassley conveyed that all bonus payments were supposed to be halted under the federal spending cuts, known as sequester.

"Does the IRS intend to execute an agreement to preserve approximately $70 million for union bonuses during sequestration?" wrote Grassley.

The IRS says it is legally bound to pay bonuses, if required by contracts worked out with the National Treasury Employees Union, according to its spokesman; it is said to be  acting under guidance of Sylvia Matthews Burwell , Director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

The bonus controversy comes at a time when the  IRS is being criminally investigated for  singling out Tea Party conservative groups for extra tax scrutiny prior, during, and after election years.

Yesterday, thousands Tea Party conservatives gathered on the west lawn of the Capitol Hill to protest the scandal and demand Congress "audit" the IRS.

NTEU's president. Colleen Kelley. said that the bonuses are awarded on merit and have been a part of the union contract with the IRS for decades. She said the bonuses are "legally required as part of the collective bargaining agreement."

I think taxpayers would rather see subsidies for poultry farmers than for partisan, and politically appointed tax administrators.

How about giving them boiled eggs instead?

You can't say then they weren't offered a bonus, Ms. Kelly.

The IRS, supposedly, has already been 'slammed' by the sequester. 

The IRS is one of several agencies forcing its staffers, nearly 90,000 employees, to take unpaid time off at home because of sequester. The agency shuttered nearly all of its offices last Friday, the second of five days this summer; it has also lost 10,000 employees to attrition in just the past two years, or over 9% of its total workforce. Sequester has prevented the agency from replacing staffers, meaning staff in some departments feel overworked.

Honey Boo-hoo.

Source: CNN